The following article is taken from Sun Microsystem's Web site: Writing for the Web by Jakob Nielsen distinguished engineer; PJ Schemenaur, technical editor; and Jonathan Fox, editor-in-chief, www.sun.com  The original article may be found, in its entirety, at: http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/index.html

Writing for the Web

You can double the usability of your web site by following these guidelines: for two sample sites studied in Sun's Science Office, we improved measured usability by 159% and 124% by rewriting the content according to the guidelines.

Writing for the Web is very different from writing for print:

• 79% of users scan the page instead of reading word-for-word
• Reading from computer screens is 25% slower than from paper
• Web content should have 50% of the word count of its paper equivalent

The Difference Between Paper and Online Presentation

In print, your document forms a whole and the user is focused on the entire set of information. On the Web, you need to split each document into multiple hyperlinked pages since users are not willing to read long pages.

Users can enter a site at any page and move between pages as they chose, so make every page independent and explain its topic without assumptions about the previous page seen by the user.

Link to background or explanatory information to help users who do not have the necessary knowledge to understand or use the page.

Make the word count for the online version of a given topic about half the word count used when writing for print: Users find it painful to read too much text on screens, and they read about 25 percent more slowly from screens than from paper.

Users don't like to scroll through masses of text, so put the most important information at the top.

Web users are impatient and critical: They have not chosen your site because you are great but because they have something they need to do. Write in the "news you can use" style to allow users to quickly find the information they want.

Credibility is important on the Web where users connect to unknown servers at remote locations. You have to work to earn the user's trust, which is rapidly lost if you use exaggerated claims or overly boastful language; avoid "marketese" in favor of a more objective style.

A few hyperlinks to other sites with supporting information increase the credibility of your pages. If at all possible, link quotes from magazine reviews and other articles to the source.

The Web is an informal and immediate medium, compared to print, so users appreciate a somewhat informal writing style and small amounts of humor.

Do not use clever or cute headings since users rely on scanning to pick up the meaning of the text.

Limit the use of metaphors, particularly in headings: Users might take you literally.

Use simple sentence structures: Convoluted writing and complex words are even harder to understand online.

Puns do not work for international users; find some other way to be humorous.

Add bylines and other ways of communicating some of your personality. (This also increases credibility.)

The Web is a fluid medium: Update pages as time goes by to reflect all changes. Statistics, numbers, and examples all need to be recent or credibility suffers.

For example: Before a conference, the page about the event might point to a registration form; afterward, point to slides or presentation transcripts instead.

Article© Copyright 1994-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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